frieren

From Middle High German vrieren, vriesen, from Old High German friosan, from Proto-West Germanic *freusan, from Proto-Germanic *freusaną, from Proto-Indo-European *prews-. The -r- was generalised from the Middle High German past forms (as in verlieren). Cognate with German Low German freren, fresen, Dutch vriezen, English freeze, Danish fryse.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfriːrən/, , ,

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːʁən

frieren (class 2 strong, third-person singular present friert, past tense fror, past participle gefroren, past subjunctive fröre, auxiliary haben or sein)

1. (intransitive, of living beings or body parts) to be cold, feel cold (unlike English freeze neither informal nor expressing extreme cold.)

   Synonym: kalt sein (impersonal with dative)

   Frierst du? ― Are you cold?

   Meine Hände frieren. ― My hands are cold.

2. (dated or southern, transitive, of body parts, or impersonal of living beings) to be cold, feel cold

   Friert es dich? ― Are you cold?

   Die Hände frieren mich. ― My hands are cold.

3. (intransitive, impersonal, of the weather) to freeze, be freezing, be below 0 degrees celsius

   Heute Nacht soll es frieren. ― It’s going to freeze tonight.

4. (intransitive, of liquid or viscous substances, rare) Synonym of gefrieren (“to freeze, become hard through cold”)

• Frost
• verfroren

• “frieren” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “frieren” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “frieren” in Duden online
• “frieren” in OpenThesaurus.de
• Friedrich Kluge (1883) “frieren”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891

frieren

1. third-person plural future subjunctive of freír